Sealed Off Research Articles

Iberian World Empires and the Globalization of Europe 1415–1668

This expansive history of the relationship between early modern globalization and Iberian empire began life as a translation and expansion of the author's 2004 study, Marte contra Minerva: El precio del imperio español, c. 1450–1600. Between then and now, it has blossomed into a new synthesis of the political economy of the Iberian world during its centuries of rapid expansion, geopolitical vigor, and eventual crisis that breaks out of traditional national and regional boundaries to place the histories of Spain, Portugal, and Europe in global context. Published in an exciting new series edited by two notable European scholars based in East Asia (Manuel Pérez García and Lúcio de Sousa), the book aims to take an approach to European history that is simultaneously internalist and externalist and to interrogate the relationship between war and society in the nascent Iberian world system. In so doing, the book seeks to underline the economic and social dynamism of the Iberian world, even in the face of measurable relative decline in the seventeenth century. Entirely absent are laments about unproductive family networks and dowdy ecclesiastical institutions that would be easily overtaken by efficient northern European competitors. Instead, the “paradoxical” conclusion arises that “it is obvious that the final effect of these (supposedly) inefficient institutions (inefficient, i.e. from the perspective of the new institutional economics) could very well be economic growth of a notable scale within the parameters of pre-industrial societies. . . . And this may be true not only for territories in Europe but also for the colonies” (p. xxv). While American silver encouraged credit in specie in Spain that allowed the nobility to mobilize for war in the sixteenth century, this fell short of the financial revolution that happened in Britain and the Netherlands in the seventeenth century (p. 187).Arranged chronologically and rich in maps and charts, the book continually draws links between economics, politics, and law. Rather than seeing state building and imperialism as discrete processes, the book explores the centralizing and unifying impact of royal courts and the continuities in local and indigenous laws and traditions in Iberia's monarchical corporate and composite states that crisscrossed the early modern world. For the author, such global state building was made possible by a pact between elites and central power within the context of war. This was in turn bolstered by arrangements of various sorts with other states both within and outside Europe, as the case of Hormuz demonstrates, which was given to the Portuguese by agreement with Safawid Persia to counter the Ottomans. Digging down through the layers of negotiated relationships, the book collapses the separation between public and private as well as secular and religious while frequently returning to the importance of family and friendships. While this multilayer system was dynamic, there were also continuities between reconquista and conquista and between Iberian state finances and Islamic patterns of taxation in this age of “state capitalism” (p. 90). Furthermore, the Iberian world system itself was far from sealed off from the rest of Europe and the world, with northern European cities benefiting directly and indirectly from Iberian expansion.While following in the footsteps of Charles Ralph Boxer, Sanjay Subrahmanyam, and Tamar Herzog, this book is unusual for a number of reasons. The range of historiography it engages is vast. It is hard to name a book that brings together so neatly such divergent traditions as the New Conquest History, new institutional economics, environmental history, and polycentric Iberian imperial history. In the case of the last of these, the author admits that Iberia's world empires were indeed “polycentric” (or, as he puts it, “multinuclear” or “nodal”), while noting that the Iberian empire was not particularly exceptional in this respect (p. 345). He does not, however, expand too much on which other examples he has in mind. Unusual among works of political economy, the book also interacts seriously with the historical work of notable twentieth-century economists, including John Maynard Keynes and the Nobel Prize–winning economist Douglass North. This said, from the perspective of those more rooted in the historiography of colonial Latin America, there are some puzzling remarks, such as when he seemingly rejects the idea that the indigenous population of the Americas might have also been consumers of goods imported from Europe (p. 293). Given the focus on economics, it is also odd that so little space is devoted to the history of Iberian slavery, which recent work has shown was hardly limited to the Atlantic world.Overall, however, the book provides an excellent graduate-level survey. While there is occasional repetition, as is unavoidable in a book of this length and scope, each chapter offers numerous important insights on a part of the Iberian world. Graduate students and scholars rewriting their lecture courses will profit from perusing this ambitious volume.

Jejunal gastrointestinal stromal tumors masquerading as an appendicular mass: an unusual presentation

Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) are a rare variety of tumors of mesenchymal origin found in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract forming about 1% of all GI tumors. These originate from the interstitial cells of Cajal. Small bowel GISTs have been shown to present as obscure GI bleeding, obstruction and perforation in literature. We report a 57 years old female patient presenting with pain abdomen, fever and vomiting and palpable right iliac fossa (RIF) mass diagnosed as an appendicular mass and managed conservatively. She was planned interval appendicectomy and was discovered to have a jejunal GIST at laparotomy treated with resection and anastomosis. There are case reports of small bowel GISTs presenting as sources of obscure or overt GI bleeding and luminal or extra luminal mass causing small bowel obstruction. Surgery is mainstay of treatment with imatinib for adjuvant or neoadjuvant therapy. This case highlights an unusual presentation of a jejunal GIST with a sealed off perforation mimicking an appendicular mass in the RIF treated by surgical resection followed by adjuvant Imatinib therapy. GIST being an uncommon tumor with varied presentations can lead to misdiagnosis and delays in treatment. This differential should be kept in mind while evaluating small bowel pathologies to aid a timely diagnosis.

Analysis of spatiotemporal characteristics of big data on social media sentiment with COVID-19 epidemic topics.

COVID-19 blocked Wuhan in China, which was sealed off on Chinese New Year's Eve. During this period, the research on the relevant topics of COVID-19 and emotional expressions published on social media can provide decision support for the management and control of large-scale public health events. The research assisted the analysis of microblog text topics with the help of the LDA model, and obtained 8 topics ("origin", "host", "organization", "quarantine measures", "role models", "education", "economic", "rumor") and 28 interactive topics. Obtain data through crawler tools, with the help of big data technology, social media topics and emotional change characteristics are analyzed from spatiotemporal perspectives. The results show that: (1) "Double peaks" feature appears in the epidemic topic search curve. Weibo on the topic of the epidemic gradually reduced after January 24. However, the proportion of epidemic topic searches has gradually increased, and a "double peaks" phenomenon appeared within a week; (2) The topic changes with time and the fluctuation of the topic discussion rate gradually weakens. The number of texts on different topics and interactive topics changes with time. At the same time, the discussion rate of epidemic topics gradually weakens; (3) The political and economic center is an area where social media is highly concerned. The areas formed by Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Sichuan and Hubei have published more microblog texts. The spatial division of the number of Weibo social media texts has a high correlation with the economic zone division; (4) The existence of the topic of "rumor" will enable people to have more communication and discussion. The interactive topics of "rumors" always have higher topic popularity and low emotion text expressions. Through the analysis of media information, it helps relevant decision makers to grasp social media topics from spatiotemporal characteristics, so that relevant departments can accurately grasp the public's subjective ideas and emotional expressions, and provide decision support for macro-control response strategies and measures and risk communication.

How to encourage collaboration and break down silos in remote teams?

PurposeOne of the issues concerning businesses today, which are reconfiguring the workplace towards more remote working, is avoiding the build-up of “silos” – teams, which operate as sealed off windowless units within the business. These interfere with the creation and maintenance of a one-team culture within your organisation.Design/methodology/approachWith everyone working from home, this situation can potentially become even more difficult to address. Teams may meet regularly over digital channels but they likely have less contact with the people in the wider organisation, who they do not work with directly. If you were to map the points of contact in your organisation, you would see that remote working in many organisations is very much reducing them and confining them to within teams. So, in remote teams, there is more of a need than ever for HR professionals and business leaders to work to break down silos to keep the one team culture.FindingsHere are some tips from the author’s experience for breaking down silos in remote teams: create opportunities for more relaxed social interactions, focus on the customer experience and share information across the organisation.Originality/valueThere may be opportunities for these underused skills to be deployed in another area of the business. But if the resource availability is not visible, that is less likely to happen. Equally, if each team does not share what it is doing in an up to date and accessible way, other teams will end up stepping on their toes. So, having a way of sharing accurate, real-time information across the business underpins the effort of working together in a unified and efficient way.

COVID-19 Preparation at a Rural District Hospital in Nepal: The days following the lockdown

Since the beginning of 2020 AD, the world is grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic and in Nepal, the first case was seen in the month of January itself. The second case, however, was detected only after 2 months and this gave the country an opportunity to upgrade the health system, especially for the pandemic. It also imposed a nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of the disease.
 Myagdi, a rural district of Nepal and its district hospital in Beni also prepared for the disease with the resources it had. The incoming route to the district was sealed off and people were asked to stay indoors unless there was an emergency. The regular OPD services of the hospital was also closed and a fever clinic was established where all the fever and suspected COVID-19 cases were seen.
 An isolation building was set up where the strong suspected cases were admitted and kept there until their PCR reports came out. Similarly, quarantine facilities were also made outside the hospital premises for those who had returned to the district from abroad. The hospital staffs were given Personal Protective Equipment, but they were scarce and had to be re-used. The whole scenario had appeared to put a mental toll on the hospital staffs as many of them were anxious and scared.
 At the same time, Dengue and Scrub Typhus cases also emerged in the district, adding to the health woes. However, the hospital staffs and the local bodies are stepping up to the challenge and are toiling hard to plan and execute for the containment of the disease in the district.
 

Legal Theory and the Politics of Legal Space

In The Dual State, Ernst Fraenkel argued that the Nazi state was a Dual State which consisted of two states that existed side by side. On the one side was the Normative State, which contained whatever remained of the law and institutions of the Weimar legal order. On the other side was the Prerogative State, which consisted of the apparatus of the Nazi Party wherein the leader’s will was the ultimate source of authority. Fraenkel observed that the law of the Normative State governed relationships between individuals and between individuals and state institutions only as long as officials in the Prerogative State did not find such government inconvenient. He concluded that the rule of law did not obtain in Nazi Germany. I contrast the Dual State with three other juridical state forms: the Rule-of-Law State in which all official action is subject to law, the officials are answerable for their actions before the ordinary courts, and the law to which they are answerable includes both the positive law that authorizes their actions and legal principles embedded in the law protective of individual rights; the Parallel State in which two legal orders are united at the top but otherwise sealed off from each other; and the Apartheid State in which vast exceptions to the general law are made in order to discriminate against one or more groups. All three are on what I call the ‘continuum of legality’, which means that those who are subject to its law will be part of a ‘jural community’--the community of legal subjects bound together by law. To be subject to the law is to be able to get an answer to the question, ‘But, how can that be law for me?’ The kind of answer one can get is deeply affected by where one’s state is on the continuum, which reveals the politics of legal space.

Transvaginal phase of laparoscopic radical hysterectomy

When laparoscopic surgery was introduced for the treatment of women with early cervical cancer by Dargent and Querleu, this technique always included a vaginal phase. Transvaginal transsection and closure of...

Assessment of mine tailings as precursors for alkali-activated materials for on-site applications

Year after year the mining industry generates 5–7 billion metric tons of tailings worldwide. They are mostly disposed rather than valorised. The substantial amounts of tailings has led to growing concerns about their ecological and environmental impacts such as occupation of large areas of land, generation of windblown dust, and contamination of surface and underground water. Over the past years the mining industry has been subjected to increase environmental principles. As the consequence, besides waste rock and water management, tailings management becomes a progressively important factor for ecologic and economic reasons.Mine tailings from flotation processes are normally disposed in impoundments on the surface. This may cause environmental and safety problems including serious water pollution arising from contamination of surface water, groundwater, and soils due to the leaching of heavy metals, process reagents, and Sulphur compounds. Recently the process of alkali-activation and geopolymerisation has been explored as a potential method for tailings consolidation and heavy metal fixation. The tailings of many existing mining operations contain the aluminosilicate minerals needed for alkali-activation at least to some extent. From a sustainability point of view it makes sense to use alkali-activated products from tailings directly on the mine site as e.g. (1) backfill material applied to fill open cavities from the (underground) mining operation and (2) cover materials for surface deposits of tailings in order to store them ecologically safe and sealed off from the environment.Mine tailings from different mining operations around the world have been investigated regarding their potential use as precursors for alkali-activated materials. An assessment of the release of gel forming elements into alkaline solutions was performed by leaching experiments under various conditions (time, concentration of the solvent, and temperature). Compared to traditional alkali-activated precursor materials the release of aluminium and silicon is in general low for the mine tailings investigated. However, results indicate a favourable ratio of Si/Al for the formation of gels similar to other alkali-activated products. Additionally, the leached calcium can contribute to the strength of the resulting products by forming C-S-H gels when a considerable amount of Si is present in the pore solution either from the activator or dissolved from the material itself.The results of the leaching tests were used to facilitate the mix design for alkali-activated products. In order to increase the mechanical strength of the final product different approaches were considered: (1) addition of reactive materials (e.g. blast furnace slag), (2) increasing the reactivity of the tailings by grinding, and (3) increasing the reactivity by curing at elevated temperature. Depending on the tailings type, the mix design, and the curing conditions the final material shows a compressive strength in excess of 30 MPa even for curing at low temperatures.The investigated mine tailings can potentially be used for various applications on the mine site. With regard to specific target applications a further evaluation of long term properties of the resulting products (e.g. freeze–thaw resistance) has to be performed. Furthermore, results indicate that products with even higher strength can be manufactured by further reducing the particle size of the tailings or by the addition of other reactive materials.

Loss Circulation Prevention during Drilling Operation - Risk Analysis Approach and its Implications

Drilling engineers and operators are stuck with challenges associated with loss circulation of drilling fluids in wellbores during drilling operation. At such times, a clear and careful decision is required in order to minimize cost or save resources that would have been lost in the bid to remedy the situation. This then informs the need to deploy reliable tools that will inform useful decisions as drawn from a thorough risk-analysis coined from the information gathered from the formation characteristics and operating pressure. In this study, a real-time statistic based approach was adopted in carrying out risk-evaluation of loss circulation events in a wellbore. Based on the expected opportunity loss analysis, it is often non-negotiable to consider other options when the analytical solution suggests that the well should be “abandoned”. For the decision tree, at the decision node, D1, the expected loss of the seal off zone option is $161.25, the expected loss of the drill ahead option is $19.2 and the expected loss of the abandon option is $13.2. Since the expected loss of the abandon option is less than the expected value of both the seal off and the drill ahead option, it is recommended to abandon the well. Furthermore, the risk analysis proved to be a veritable tool considering the cost implications of other options; and can also serve as basis for automated decision-making.

Tragom romantičarskog i sentimentalističkog duha - psihologija gubitka u delu F. Skota Ficdžeralda

American modernist F. Scott Fitgerald was a writer who analyzed his own life for insight into his society as a whole. Fitzgerald wrote about a variety of different mourning patterns from his childhood and these circumstances contributed to his literary insights into cultural mourning norms. The paper aims at presenting biographical references we link to the specific feeling of loss evident in his experience of the world around him, only to put these references into the context of psychoanalytical theory. Thus, This Side of Paradise links Amory's difficulty in progressing into maturity with his upbringing in a society where people blindly believe in Victorian progress and resist the act of mourning. Ultimately, Amory matures by learning how to grieve, identifying with his father's romantic masculine and his mother's sentimental feminine modes of mourning - crosscurrents of loss within the dominant culture. In The Last Tycoon, Fitzgerald's alter ego Monroe Stahr attempts to cope with loss in the world around him, while mourning for an aristocratic past formerly sealed off to him. Stahr envisions the motion picture industry as a unifying force in society. In effect, in a reflection of his creator's literary efforts, he promotes creativity and empathy as important elements in the healing process.

The Law of Contracts in the Age of the Coronavirus Pandemic: Is the Statutory Risk Allocation pursuant to the Swiss Code of Obligations still adequate?

Pacta sunt servanda – agreements must be kept. This general principle of civil law requires that both or all parties to commercial contracts are expected to meet their contractual obligations, at least as long as performance is still possible and circumstances do not change fundamentally, thereby ensuring the efficacy and the efficiency of our system of private ordering. In March 2020, however, the rapidly spreading coronavirus outbreak, which was eventually declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization, all of a sudden changed everyday life all over Europe from one day to another. Airlines were cancelling flights, companies were closed down, and consumers were rapidly changing their buying behavior. In addition, many European countries, including Switzerland, enacted emergency decrees, according to which national borders were closed, cities were sealed off, major events with more than a certain number of people were banned, and teaching in schools and universities was suspended, at least for some time. There is no need to say that this situation caused considerable difficulties for all participants in the economy, business enterprises and consumers alike. Against this backdrop, I elaborate on both the remedies for a breach of contract provided by the legislator as well as the adaption and the termination of contracts by a competent judge in order to address the question, whether the statutory risk allocation pursuant to the Swiss Code of Obligations is still adequate or not. A functional and doctrinal approach is used to unfold and analyze this timeless question from a contemporary perspective.

The Second American Revolution: The Civil War–Era Struggle over Cuba and the Rebirth of the American Republic by Gregory P. Downs

Reviewed by: The Second American Revolution: The Civil War–Era Struggle over Cuba and the Rebirth of the American Republic by Gregory P. Downs Don H. Doyle (bio) The Second American Revolution: The Civil War–Era Struggle over Cuba and the Rebirth of the American Republic. By Gregory P. Downs. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019. Pp. 212. Cloth, $27.95.) In the preface to this provocative book, Gregory Downs confesses he set out to take risks, and that he has done. The result is a genuine intervention in historical debates that for ages have remained confined to a nation-bound narrative sealed off from the fascinating world stage on which Civil War–era history played out. [End Page 419] Downs invites readers to see the American Civil War as a revolutionary event whose causes and consequences were linked to Cuba and Spain in ways few have imagined. He is dissatisfied with the way historians have “whitewashed” the conflict as a brothers’ war and celebrated the Union’s survival and the emancipation of four million enslaved as a self- congratulatory narrative of national success. The problem, Downs explains, is that “assumptions about continuity shape how people see the country and how scholars analyze its past. These assumptions constrain our political history and our political imagination” (15). The book begins with a strong argument for the war as a violent revolution that, instead of preserving the Union, overthrew it. The old Constitution of the Founders, having proven inadequate to the challenge of slavery, was effectively replaced, not just amended. This marked the death of America’s First Republic and the birth of its Second Republic. No sooner does his interpretation of revolutionary change settle in, however, than Downs insists the revolution failed for lack of nerve. Instead of a sweeping transformation to set America right, Republican leaders settled for a “reluctant, managerial revolution.” The author calls it “bloody constitutionalism,” a halfway revolution that sought to limit violence, return to peace and national unity, then “whitewash” its history as an optimistic narrative of national perseverance (6). There was “no greater example of this whitewashing than the Gettysburg Address,” in which Abraham Lincoln portrayed the war as a fulfillment of the nation’s founding ideals and the means to a “new birth of freedom.” The Civil War “was defanged long before it was completed,” Downs protests (51). Chapter 2, “The Civil War the World Made,” decenters the familiar national focus on the causes of the war to locate its origins in Cuba. Downs wants to do for the Spanish Caribbean something like what Edward Rugemer did for the British Caribbean by linking turbulence in a neighboring slave regime to the heightened tensions inside the United States.1 Although events in Cuba “seem a world away from the Civil War, the road from Santiago to Fort Sumter . . . reveals the political and ideological fractures in global affairs that turned isolated rebellions into interconnected revolutions, a general American crisis that disrupted the Gulf World and the surrounding Caribbean” (59). Cuba experienced nothing so dramatic as the Great Jamaican Slave Revolt of 1831–32 or Britain’s subsequent decision to abolish slavery, which served Rugemer’s case for the Caribbean origins of the war. As a site for southern imperialist ambitions, however, we see Cuba playing a crucial role in mounting sectional tensions within the United States. [End Page 420] In chapter 3, “The World the Civil War Might Have Made,” the author returns to Spain and Cuba to illustrate the failure of the U.S. Civil War to transform the world. Spanish liberals were elated by the U.S. victory in 1865. Men like Emilio Castelar, an ardent republican (and brilliant historian), admired America as a model Spain might emulate. The chance to do so came in September 1868, when a revolutionary cabal of generals and politicians drove Queen Isabella II into exile and set about building a new liberal state. At the same time, Cubans, fed up with Spanish exploitation, seized their chance to break with Spain. Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, a wealthy sugar planter imbued with revolutionary ideals, proclaimed independence in October 1868 and issued vague promises of freedom to slaves...

Spectrum Vulnerabilities, Part I: Systematic and Technological Challenges to Identifying and Understanding Vulnerabilities

An IoT device in a Faraday cage is about as good as a paperweight. Yet, the inherent openness of wireless systems leaves IoT devices exposed to vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities are unavoidable precisely because inputs into radio receivers cannot be sealed off and wireless links cannot be completely isolated. Left unaddressed, these spectrum vulnerabilities can be exploited by malicious actors or be the source of non-malicious harmful interference, both of which can have high social and economic costs. Notwithstanding these vulnerabilities, wireless devices have become increasingly prevalent, and our reliance on radios is only expected to increase. This is unsurprising considering that connected devices have become indispensable to public safety and national security communications, business and critical infrastructure operations, navigation, socializing, and entertainment. Stakeholders and policymakers have only just begun to understand how the prevalence of connected devices and their vulnerabilities results in a high number of actual and potential security risks. Consequently, they have struggled to identify and understand those risks, let alone develop solutions to address them. If vulnerabilities cannot be identified, they cannot be prioritized, and if they cannot be prioritized, they will not be sufficiently resourced. In March 2019, I was invited to attend and report on a roundtable discussion convened by Silicon Flatirons that brought together experts from government, academia, and industry to discuss spectrum vulnerabilities. This column, which will be presented in two parts, captures some of the discussion. Part I will focus on the systematic and technological challenges to identifying and understanding spectrum vulnerabilities. Part II, which will appear in the next issue of IEEE Internet of Things Magazine, will focus on recommendations to address those challenges. The ideas and conclusions herein are attributable to the participants, who engaged in the conversation under the Chatham House Rule.

Effect of Internal Air Flow on Local Postweld Heat Treatment for Large Diameter ASME P92 Steel-Welded Pipes

Abstract Local postweld heat treatment (PWHT) is usually employed in field fabrication of large-sized ASME SA-335 Grade P92 steel pipes. Internal air flow in pipes that arise from field fabrication can result in considerable convection losses on the inside surface of the pipe when the pipe is not strictly sealed off. Welding and local PWHT experiments of a large diameter P92 steel pipe were conducted both with and without internal air flow, and temperature field of both sides of the pipe was measured. The conjugate heat transfer between the pipe and the internal air is simulated using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method. The effect of internal air flow on temperature field was further investigated. Results indicate that temperature gradient along through-thickness direction and axial direction during local PWHT is significantly increased due to internal air flow. The increasing rate of temperature difference between inner and outer surface at weld centerline to internal air velocity is about 14.5 °C/(m s−1). The maximum temperature is no longer located at the weld centerline, which will lead to a risk of overheating. The temperature drop is severer in the air inlet side than air outlet side at same distance from weld centerline. For local PWHT to be successful, the internal air flow should be strictly limited during local PWHT; otherwise, the width of heated band (HB) should be extended.

Deconstructive Empiricism: Science and Metaphor in Derrida's Early Work

The work of Jacques Derrida is often characterized as anti-scientific, and his philosophy of language taken to mean we are sealed off from empirical reality, confined to our metaphysical prison. This position is reinforced by the fact that his forerunners, Heidegger and Nietzsche, did diminish the importance of the sciences, and argued that we are enclosed within the limits of language. Today, philosophy continues to deconstruct the nature/culture distinction, and challenge the meaning of materialism, but in recent decades has realized that this work requires, in addition to a critique of the modern concept of science, a rehabilitation of the sciences outside their metaphysical definition. The fact that Derrida continues to be understood as an anti-science thinker has led to the exclusion of his work from this project. In this paper, I show that Derrida, while deconstruction the metaphysical concepts of science, nature and empiricism, in fact takes the mathematical sciences as an important force of deconstructing, and develops an interpretation of empiricism that points to a non-metaphysical understanding of it. From this perspective, Derrida's work is useful for thinking through the relation of the human to language and nature in the age of globalization and anthropogenic climate change.

Tension-Tension Fatigue of 2.5D-SiC/SiC Ceramic Matrix Composites at Elevated Temperatures

In order to investigate the influence of Tension-tension fatigue behavior of fiber reinforced ceramic-matrix composites, SiC/SiC composites with 2.5D fiber architecture were prepared via Precursor Infiltration and Pyrolysis (PIP) method. Tension-tension fatigue behavior of SiC/SiC composites was investigated in 1000°C and 1200°C, under fatigue stresses ranging from 70 to 120MPa at a frequency of 1.0 Hz, under oxidizing atmosphere. Fatigue life of SiC/SiC composites achieved 305, 984 cycles at 1200°C/70MPa, and 252, 988 cycles at 1200°C/108MPa, which were longer than test in 1000°C. Composite microstructure, as well as failure mechanism was investigated. The main reason that cause tension-tension fatigue failure of SiC/SiC composites are oxidation damage and stress damage. The microstructure of SiC/SiC composites demonstrated that the oxidation of interfaces and SiC fibers caused the failure of the composites. Under the load of alternating stress, the original voids and cracks in the material preparation process will be widened, and new cracks will be generated, for cracked SiC/SiC composites, oxygen in is especially serious at intermediate temperatures(∼800°C) where it can reach the SiC fiber before being sealed off by slow-glowing silica on the matrix crack surface, therefore, tension-tension fatigue life of SiC/SiC composites at 1000°C is lower than 1200°C.

New Perspectives on Twentieth-Century Catholicism

Until the 1980s the history of the Roman Catholic Church and Catholicism in modern Europe was mostly the preserve of the theologically and confessionally defined field of ‘church history’ or ‘ecclesiastic history’. Catholic historiography was sealed off from mainstream (North American and British) historiography, with nineteenth- and twentieth-century Catholicism seemingly little more than a backward-looking footnote in the dominant narrative of secular modernity and progress. In a 1991 review article David Blackbourn pointed out that ‘historians in the mainstream have commonly considered Catholicism, if they considered it at all, as a hopelessly obscurantist force at odds with the more serious isms that have shaped the modern age’. Within the same review, however, Blackbourn signaled the emergence of timid but nevertheless clear ‘signs of a change’ in the historiographical direction and a new interest in Catholic history.

Design of X-ray units for inspection applications (review)

A review of the structural elements (individual components, printed circuit boards, etc.) of X-ray systems intended for inspection of electronic products is presented. The basic principles of constructing such systems and typical composition of the equipment capable of providing the minimum necessary functionality are considered. Among the main technical characteristics an emphasis is made on the resolution power, which depends on the pixel size and thickness of the scintillator layer of the X-ray detector, as well as on the size of the effective focal spot of the X-ray tube. Comparative analysis of the advantages and shortcomings of clastic (open type) and sealed (closed type) X-ray tubes – one of the main nodes of such systems-is carried out. A structural diagram of a clastic X-ray tube is presented along with and the characteristics of domestic and foreign developments. The main disadvantages of the systems based on clastic tubes are considered. Large dimensions, large weight, relative complexity of the construction, presence of the vacuum-tight collapsible connections, the necessity of using a pumping system providing high vacuum, the necessity of high-voltage training of the tube assemblies after their replacement, and high cost are noted separately. The design of sealed off BS microfocus X-ray tube and radiation sources on their base which can be used in the development of domestic X-ray systems are briefly described. The diameter and length of the metal-glass cylinder tube are 75 and 315 mm, and the diameter and length of the copper anode tube 10 and 100 mm, respectively. A tungsten target is deposited on a beryllium substrate (X-ray tube exit window) with a thickness of 0.2 mm. The minimum focal length during x-ray photography is 0.5 mm. A comparative analysis of the characteristics of a clastic (collapsible) X-ray tube with continuous pumping and an X-ray tube sealed from an exhaust cart revealed the possibility of successful use of sealed tubes in modern X-ray systems used for inspection applications.

‘Produce or Perish’. The crisis of the late 1940s and the place of labour in post-colonial India

AbstractThis article argues that the late 1940s in India should no longer be reduced to the twin events of partition and independence. A generalized political crisis unsettled, for a brief period, the structures of social and economic power, and not just intercommunity relations and the constitution of the state. These years were thus, among other things, a catalytic moment for the definition of ‘labour’ as both a political category and a parameter of post-colonial politics: processes dating back to the First World War, at least, were consolidated, under pressure from this crisis, into a new labour regime that has withstood political pressure for almost seven decades. The article offers an analysis of the almost-forgotten post-war strike movement, which was nevertheless unprecedented in its social and geographical spread. The movement elicited both repressive and reformist responses: the extraordinary level of emergency powers applied to suppress it are, therefore, as much examined as the series of momentous legislative and institutional changes of the late 1940s. In conclusion, the long-term consequences of this cycle of strike–reform–repression for India's post-colonial labour regime are adumbrated. A strongly etatist, potentially authoritarian, regime of industrial relations, it is argued, was checked by an enduring political trade union pluralism. At the same time, divisions within India's working classes were deepened and consolidated as labour law and social legislation sealed off the comparatively small ‘core workforces’ of public sector and large-scale industrial enterprises from the majority of workers in what would soon be called the ‘informal economy’.

Combined intrapleural and intrabronchial injection of fibrin glue for closing alveolar pleural fistula: a case report

BackgroundThe treatment of persistent air leak is a challenge. Herein, we reported the combined intrabronchial and intrapleural injection of fibrin glue using fiber bronchoscopy to seal off an alveolar pleura fistula developed following necrotizing pneumonia in high-risk patient.Case presentationA 74-year-old man was intubated in emergency for acute ischemic stroke. Percutaneous dilatational tracheostomy was then performed, and 15 days later patient returned to spontaneous breathing. However, he developed alveolar pleural fistula following necrotizing pneumonia with persistent air leaks. The intrabronchial and intrapleural injection of fibrin glue using fiber bronchoscopy sealed off the alveolar pleura fistula after that other endoscopic treatments as bronchial valve and intrabronchial fibrin glue application had failed.ConclusionsOur strategy is safe and easy to reproduce. It represents an additional method in the armamentarium of the physicians for the management of PAL when all standard strategies are unfeasible or fail.